Saturday, December 08, 2012

While it’s true Legoflamb
picked this story up and ran with it on Thursday, OTN remains the blog of
record for animal art so here, if you caught it on LoL, it is again.

Turns out Bubbles
(b.1983), the chimp that lived with Michael Jackson and the subject of Jeff
Koons’s eponymous sculpture, has turned his own hand to art. This is the same chimpanzee
that accompanied Jackson on his visit to the Mayor of Osaka during the Bad
World tour and was allowed to join the two for tea. You can see Jackson and
Bubbles doing the Moon Walk here.

Bubbles went to live with
Jackson on the Neverland Ranch in
1988, the same year Jeff Koons made
his famous porcelain Michael Jackson and Bubbles as part of his Banality series.In the early 2000s Bubbles
became aggressive and was sent to an animal sanctuary eventually ending up in
the Centre for great apes (CGA) in Florida where he lives now.

In his old age (chimp
years) Bubbles has taken up the brush and is making paintings one of which was
sold at Art Basel Miami this week.